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Title: De drang nar het onbekende
Subtitle: De metafoor 'avontuur' in het poëticale vernieuwingsdiscours van Vlaamse literaire tijdschriften (1949-1954)
Author(s): LAMPAERT, Jan
Journal: Spiegel der Letteren
Volume: 65    Issue: 1   Date: 2023   
Pages: 51-82
DOI: 10.2143/SDL.65.1.3292286

Abstract :
The early 1950s see the emergence of a radically new, experimental poetry and poetics in Flemish literary magazines such as Tijd en Mens, De Meridiaan, De Vlaamse Gids and Taptoe. Through manifestoes, debates, reviews and essays the metaphor ‘poetry is an adventure’ is deployed to construct and characterize the new poetics, the persona of the modern poet and the renewal itself. This article focuses on the adventure metaphor to trace the formation, origins, circulation and dynamics of poetic innovation in Flemish literary magazines between 1949 and 1954. Firstly, their poetic discourse is marked by a sustained antagonism vis-à-vis traditional poetry through negative associations with petit bourgeois narrow-mindedness. In contrast, modern poetry is represented as an adventurous journey while the modern poet as portrayed as an adventurer and gold seeker. Secondly, this imagery reveals a close affiliation with both Surrealism and the contemporary, international neo-avant-garde. A discourse analysis of the adventure metaphor reveals the complex network of associations within and between periodicals on both a synchronic and diachronic level.

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